Thriftism

I love candied almonds, so when I had to cut eggs out of my diet, I was a bit gutted to find out most candied almonds contain egg whites. Luckily, I discovered you can actually make these without eggs. Even better? When you make them without eggs, it actually becomes a much simpler and quicker recipe. I used 6 ingredients, but you could cut it down in theory if you didn't want the sugar or cinnamon coating.  What You Need 1.5 Cups Almonds (raw) 2 Tbsp Maple Syrup (we used Bushwick Kitchen Vegan Syrup ) 1 tsp Oil (your choice of kind) 1 tsp Vanilla Extract 1/2 tsp Cinnamon 3 Tbsp Sugar 1/4 tsp Salt Start by heating oven to 350. Spread almonds out on cookie sheet or baking pan. Roas to 10 minutes or 5 minutes on each side (lightly toss at 5 minutes). Once almonds have browned and smell toasted, remove from oven. Mix maple syrup, oil, vanilla, and cinnamon in sauce pan. Add almonds. Stir constantly over medium heat until all liquid is gone.  Next combine salt and sugar in a bo...

Zucchini can grow like a weed for most of the summer, making it a great garden plant. Most people I know only think about zucchini bread as a use for zucchini and then get sick of it. The uses for zucchini are nearly endless and here is just another quick and simple recipe to use up your zucchinis.  Another great reason to enjoy zoodles (zucchini noodles)? They are keto friendly and low carb making them a great substitution for diabetics or others looking to cut down calories and carbs. They also don't seem too noticeably different to me from regular noodles.  We use a handheld spiralizer. You can get electric ones that are much fancier, but we found the simple and cheap LHS spiralizer does the trick just fine. In fact, feel free to simply cut thin strips of zucchini if you don't want to invest in the spiralizer. I'm a bit too lazy to do the extra cutting, but we have used a peeler to make lasagna style noodles with great results so I imagine you could cut or grate small n...

I hate having to cook before each meal. This is probably why I typically have one big meal prep day a week, followed by heating up leftovers from the prep day. I don't remember to start cooking soon enough and am left starving by the time I think of making something. That's why I love slow cooker meals. This is a super flavorful one that I was able to put on overnight to have ready in the morning, but you could also throw it on in the morning to be ready for supper. Printable to letter sized paper Check out the  Why Buy Dry Blog post: https://thriftism.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-buy-dry.html Embed

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it also can be one of the hardest to find time to make. This is especially true if you are on any sort of restricted diet. The go-to meals seem to be cereal, eggs, pancakes or muffins. Even those can take some time to prepare and eat and aren't great options if you are on a gluten free, dairy free, or vegan diet. Overnight oats are a simple solution for prepping ahead and can be eaten on the go. They fit into most diets and are easily adaptable to create your favorite flavors.  Embed

Whether you are looking to mix up your food routine or swap out rice for a keto friendly alternative, this curried cabbage is a great choice. Extremely low on carbs and high on flavor and nutrients, it will be fun and filling while taking only a few minutes to make. Printable recipe below. ⇓⇓⇓ Embed

This radish stew requires no heavy cream but offers the same creaminess as if you had added it. For those, like me, that aren’t in love with eating fresh radishes, this recipe is a wonderful way to use garden produce while taking away some of the radish bite. Not only is it tasty, radish soup offers vitamins C and B-12, magnesium, and iron and is under 200 calories per serving. This makes a great soup and salad lunch. Plus, did I mention it tastes great to a nonradish lover????

Copy of Copy of Rhubarb cheese cake by ashley rolland

Get ready for the week with a easy store, protein packed snack! Beans and rice usually sounds plain, boring and basic, but with the spicy kick these beans and rice are anything but basic. We like to keep a few cups of this on hand to use as a side dish or for a low calorie, high protein snack to keep us going throughout the day. What You'll Need: 2 Cups Water 2 tsp Chicken Bouillon 2 tsp Gelatin 1 tsp Olive Oil 2 Cups Diced Onion (1.5 Large Onions) 1 Cup Diced Bell Pepper (feel free to use spicier peppers if desired) 1/2 Cup Diced Celery  4 Cloves Garlic (minced) 2 tsp Paprika 1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper 2 Cups Black Beans (Cooked ~2/3 Cup Dried) 2 Cups Rice 4 tsp Parsley Optional 1 Cup Diced Ham Equipment ( What We Used ) Cutting Boards Sauce Pot Knives Stir Spoon Storage Containers - We love Pyrex for easy transporting and microwaving How to Make Combine water, bouillon, and gelatin. Cook rice as directed on pac...

Love baby red mashed potatoes? Add garlic and they get even better. This incredibly easy recipe offers you an affordable restaurant quality side to serve at your next family meal. Saving money never tasted so good! What you need: ~8-10 baby red potatoes Pot to cook potatoes 3 Cloves Garlic (or equivalent powder, but I prefer fresh.) 1/2 tsp Salt 2 Tbsp Butter 5 oz Milk Potato Masher or Food Processor Start by rinsing your potatoes. You want to mash sure the skin is nice and clean if you plan on eating it. Potato skins have a great array of nutrients and make a wonderful addition to your diet, but you can peel your potatoes if you prefer. Cut/Quarter your potatoes and add to your pot. Add enough water to cover potatoes and boil for ~20minutes. You can check if they are done by using a fork. If there is little resistance they are done! Hence the saying  "Stick a fork in me, I'm done." Now if you have a potato masher you can add the rest...

Happy Summer! We are finally having warm, actually HOT, weather. With it being over 80 almost every day last week, it was far too hot to eat warm food. There was no way I was going to cook anything after working out in the garden for hours. Salads have proven to be my savior on sweltering days, so there may be lots of different salad recipes coming out soon. J To begin my salad adventures, I've chosen one that feeds my buffalo sauce addition. Side note: buffalo sauce can be combined with just about anything and taste even better! If you're like me you don't have a whole lot of time during the week between work and housework and still trying to do some fun things in there too. That's why I try to cook all of my food on the weekends to reduce wasting that time during the week. If there are any ingredients on my salads that need to be cooked, I do it ahead of time and freeze them or store in the refrigerator if possible. For my chicken salad-I have a ...

 Rice crackers are a great alternative to wheat/gluten containing cracker that you usually find in the store. They definitely have gluten-free options, but lets face it, nothing is going to be as cheap as homemade rice crackers when you're making your own flour.I know I have brought up my grain mill quite a bit, but I really think the grain mill is awesome. Also, rice is one of the cheapest things you can buy at the store. I think it was around $4 for a 5lb bag. This is where the grain mill comes in handy--rice flour is NOT dirt cheap at the store. Grinding rice flour is really, really easy as is only takes one pass through rather that a couple with the harder items like garbanzo beans. These crackers are one of the easiest recipes I have ever made and is consists of 4 ingredients (plus spices if you flavor yours). 1.5 Cup Rice Flour 2 t Baking Powder 1 T Olive Oil 1 C Boiling Water Seasoning to Taste Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix your flour and baking powder ...

We made quiche (or as Race calls it-egg bake) to use up some of our eggs. We got 4 dozen when they went on sale for $0.96/dozen. I wasn't too sure about how it would turn out as we basically threw in whatever we had, which wasn't too much. I did buy spinach to add to it just to get something healthy in there. I think overall it can't be too bad for me to eat and it did taste great! Here is a breakdown of the ingredients with costs. We might have put some garlic powder in and we did add hot sauce when we served it, but these costs are minimal- probably less than 1 cent.    Quiche 10 eggs 0.8 .96/dozen 16 oz Spinach 1.79 2 Onions 0.53 3.97/5lb 3 Potatoes 0.58 2.88/5lb 1/2 C Cheese 0.99 1.98/2 Cups Total 4.69 Per Serving 0.39 We mixed everything together and baked it in a 9"x13" cake pan at 350 degrees for around 40 minutes. Any pan will work and any batch size will work ( fewer egg...

Winter is coming and with that cooler weather. Fend off the cold with a warm, healthy, and cheap dish. The best part about chili is you can really make it your own. What You'll Need 1 C dry red beans 1 C dry pinto beans 1 C dry black beans 7 Tomatoes or 2-3 cans diced tomatoes (Preferably reduced salt) 2 Onions Lots of Chili Powder Garlic (Fresh or powdered) Meat (Optional) I try to avoid adding salt to anything and try to buy ingredients with the least amount of salt as well. Salt causes bloating and in general isn't great for your body. Some salt is necessary, but everything now has so much salt that anytime we can cut back on that it's good. I used all dried beans because they are ridiculously cheaper than buying canned beans and again it reduces salt intake. You also lose all those preservatives that come with the canned beans. Lots of people avoid dry beans because it can take a lot longer to cook. You can either soak them overnight or do a quick soak wh...

I'm one of those people who needs to eat every couple of hours. When I don't I get plain old crabby and have a lot more trouble working. I always have trouble coming up with decent snacks. Craisins were my solution for awhile and I was bringing the super size bag to work. Trouble arose when I'd eat that whole bag within a week or two. Not such a great plan. I guess I should portion out my snacks better. Lately, I've been looking for different solutions. I love granola bars, but the good ones can get spendy and they also tend to have a lot of preservatives and other things I can't even pronounce. So I found a couple recipes and changed out what I had on hand/left things out I didn't to come up with the items listed below.  I priced this out to be around $0.12/serving. This is way better than the Great Value brand I had been buying which were around $0.40/serving. These bars turned out great- even though I may have cooked them a little too long. They were incred...